July 2019 #24in48 Sign-Ups are Open!

It is hot. Really, really hot. Steamy, sweltering, and gross. Which means it’s the perfect season for staying inside in lovely air conditioning with a stack of books, a glass of lemonade, and no one to bother you. Or if you’re an outside cat, summer means hammocks, beaches, hiking, or even just sitting on a deck with your feet up. Either way, its time for another round of #24in48!

📚 Join us on July 20-21, 2019 📚

We had an amazing January readathon, with 2,700 readers joining us for two days of non-stop page turning and we are so excited about this summer’s event. We know summer’s endless activities make setting aside a whole weekend to read much more challenging but it also opens up some new opportunities to get the whole fam in on the fun.

Taking a road trip? Put on a audiobook everyone in the car can get into! Hitting the beach? Slather on the sunscreen and pack a stack of paperbacks. Spending your days shuttling kids between activities? Load up your phone or ereader with books or short story collections you can dip in and out of and rack up the page count. Even if you’re hitting the trails, a good audiobook narrator in your ears can make for a fantastic companion (just bring a spare power pack so you don’t end up with an empty phone battery in case of an emergency).

Don’t forget, the point of 24in48 is not just about hitting an hourly goal – it’s always been about spending a weekend reading, however you can make that happen. And for so many of you, you’re making that happen together. We saw that in January with the 40+% increase in participation – you’re all doing this weekend together, whether it’s renting hotel rooms or houses together to escape the day-to-day or organizing readalongs through your libraries or book clubs (online AND in person).

How does it work?

If you’re new to 24in48, this is the basic gist: beginning at 12:01am (official timezone is EDT) on Saturday morning and running through 11:59pm on Sunday night, participants read for 24 hours out of that 48-hour period.

You can split that up however you’d like: 20 hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday; 12 hours each day; six four-hour sessions with four hour breaks in between. You can pause as much as you need, enjoy regularly scheduled weekend activities, nap, stop for dance breaks with your kids or pets or neighbors. Whatever works for you.

And that’s it. The format never changes but it’s always an adventure.

Have more questions? There’s an FAQ page for that. As always, we’re accepting donations to help us send more prizes out to international winners through the PayPal donate button on the sidebar (or you can go here). Every dollar helps. And if you’d like to donate prizes directly, send us an email at 24in48readathonofficial@gmail.com.

New Merch!

In January, we rolled out a bunch of swag in advance of the readathon and you guys snatched it ALLLLL up. To celebrate all the things we love about summer reading (and the July 24in48), we created a limited edition design. Pick it up now in time for next month’s event. Don’t worry – if you missed the originals the first time, you can always add some of those sweet, sweet readathon goods to your cart too.

Stay tuned for even more changes and make sure you subscribe to the blog to get notified whenever we announce a new and shiny thing.

Sign-up details

Ready to join? Fill out the form below (or if you’re having trouble, click through here) and feel free to list any and all of the places you’ll be hanging out online during the ‘thon. After you sign up, check out who else is participating. If your entry doesn’t immediately pop in to the spreadsheet, give it a few minutes to populate. (It’s also worth noting that mobile phones can make things difficult, so if the form doesn’t work on your phone, try a computer!)

And you can follow the readathon in all the normal places. We’re on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Litsy and you can use the official hashtag #24in48 everywhere to keep up with your fellow readathon-ers.